I'm sitting here, working on my second full-length Femdom Vampire novel. It is slow going at the moment as I am trying to market and promote Vampire's Key at the same time.
Marketing is out of my comfort zone. I am somewhat of a loner and prefer solitude to crowds. In this respect, I am much closer to the archetypal vampire.
Part of my work this afternoon has been to research other Femdom Vampire authors. The aim was to see who and what is out there. I discovered, happily, that there is a huge following for Joey W. Hill who has evidently been writing for a long time and has created a prolific back catologue of books including many (nearly twenty I believe) Femdom vampire books. This surprised me as I have felt for the past few months to be somewhat of a lone voice in the dark erotic world.
To date my promotions have really only been on Twitter. A little on Goodreads and a profile set up on Facebook, but not much more than that.
I have some positive, five star reviews on Amazon which I have been lucky to gain (not paid for) from supportive readers.
I know it is early days for me and I have to figure out how to promote and market my book. How to find my audience and target them (I will, in a nice way, get you!). But it feels like a struggle when you look at your sales sheet and see it has flatlined again. Despite that, I quite like the irony of a vampire novel flatlining!
There is frustration and yes anger, why the f... isn't it selling? What the f... do I have to do to make it sell? Am I wasting my time?! etc etc. All understandable emotions, I believe for a would-be author.
In this respect, I believe I share these emotions with many others: so much effort, care, attention, love and hard work put into writing, only to step out into the world shouting "Here's my book!" and to discover everyone else is shouting the same. "No my book!" "Here's My book!"
I'm Spartacus! I'm Spartacus!
"Me! Me! Me!" It sounds like the incessant squawking of chicks! I don't actually feel too keen on adding my voice to this. As I said, I don't enjoy crowds, I prefer solitude, ideally in nature.
I'm therefore left with a dilemma, with three options: 1. Request the services of those with a gift for marketing or, 2. work on ways to promote my own book myself, 3. a bit of both.
And the answer, I think, will be option three, please.
To be continued....
In the meantime, Vampire's Key is on Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo.